If you’re in the mood to bake a strawberry layer cake, here’s a scratch recipe flavored with 2 cups of pureed strawberries and a dash of strawberry extract. It’s a nice change from the popular doctored cake mix versions made with white cake mix and strawberry gelatin. It doesn’t have that same hot pink color, but the flavor makes up for it.
As far as flavor is concerned, it’s full-on strawberry with notes of vanilla. Also, the texture is dense and soft rather than fluffy. We liked this scratch cake a lot, but the truth is I haven’t made one of the cake mix variations in a while and want to do a comparisons of the two types together. I’ll post a cake mix version (though you probably already have one), but for now here’s the scratch. It’s adapted from one I found on Fancy Flours, where I’ve purchased cute sprinkles and cupcake wrappers. My changes were to use a completely different icing, make the cake in two layers and add vanilla.
- 2 sticks (8 oz) salted butter, room temperature
- 1 3/4 cup sugar (12.25 oz)
- 5 egg whites
- 2 teaspoon strawberry extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups pureed fresh strawberries, measured after pureed
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 3 cups cake flour (I used 12 oz)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 8 ounces cream cheese, from the refrigerator
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
- 3 large strawberries, pureed
- 1 tablespoon strawberry jam
- Pinch of salt
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x2 inch round cake pans. Alternatively, you may use three.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add strawberry extract, vanilla extract, pureed strawberries, and sour cream. Beat until combined.
- Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until combined.
- Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into batter.
- Pour batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Let cool in pans for 10 minutes then turn out onto wire racks. Cool completely.
- To make frosting, beat butter and cream cheese for about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Add jam and slowly add pureed strawberries. Taste test it at this point and add a little strawberry extract if you feel like it.
- This icing is kind of soft, so I recommend putting the cake in the refrigerator as soon as you've finished frosting it. I stored mine in the refrigerator in a cake carrier. It tasted even better on Day 2.
T. Martin says
March 1, 2014 at 1:39 pmHaving spent a lot of time pouring over cake mixed based recipes I can say
this type of cake is one where the outcome is MUCH better when baked from scratch.
Sometimes there is just no shortcut to a good end result.
Donna @ What the Dog Ate says
February 28, 2014 at 1:03 amHi Anna,
Mine wasn’t very pink but it tasted like actual strawberries, which isn’t always easy to accomplish when all that butter is involved. 🙂
Mela says
February 26, 2014 at 9:28 pmWish I had all the ingredients so I can bake this cake. We like anything with strawberries. Thanks, Anna for using my strawberry frosting again. It’s really good when chilled.
Anna says
February 26, 2014 at 9:25 pmThis is a good cake for anyone who wants something with more of a natural color. As much as I enjoyed the flavor, I think I like strawberry cakes that are hot pink!
Donna, yours looks good. Was it very pink?
I may have to compromise again and look for scratch cakes that have gelatin in them. This one’s next on the list.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/strawberry-cake-from-scratch/detail.aspx?src=VD_Summary
Donna @ What the Dog Ate says
February 26, 2014 at 7:51 pmYummy! I made something similar using the puree the. The strawberry puree juice is used in the cake and the puree solids are used in the frosting.
http://whatthedogate.blogspot.com/2014/02/strawberry-dream-cake.html
KAnn says
February 26, 2014 at 6:57 pmLooks beautiful…I was searching for a fresh strawberry cake several years ago per special request and I struggled to find one that did not use gelatin…I found this one (used my own cream cheese frosting) and it was very good.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Jesse-and-Steves-Fresh-Strawberry-Cake/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=strawberry%20cake&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page&soid=sr_results_p2i19
Karen Schmidt-Dill says
February 26, 2014 at 5:53 pmIn the midst of a “ground blizzard” today and severely cold, this looks so summery and I am drooling! Beautiful picture too. I love the dense moist scratch baked cakes so much better than the boxed cake mix kinds.